58 | MARINE Seafarer Marine Engineering T T Hugh de Lacy Demand grows for marine engineers Seafarer Marine Engineering founder, Robert Neal. The attraction that is the Marlborough Sounds coupled with the Picton & Waikawa marinas is one of the factors underwriting the bright future for Seafarer Marine Engineering, even as work continues to pour in from the region’s fishing and barging services including Outward Bound at Anakiwa. Picton-based Seafarer Marine Engineering provides a broad range of services to the commercial and private marine markets, covering engine installation servicing and annual maintenance, engine, gearbox and pump overhauls and insurance work, machining and welding. The workshops cover most of the quarter-acre premises in Market Street, though the six highly qualified engineering staff can be found working at either of the two local slips where big vessels are pulled up out of the water to be worked on, run by TCC Boats & Westshore Marine Ltd. It can also be found working on the hardstand in Waikawa, at customers’ berths, in the Havelock and Nelson marinas, at Kaikoura, Lyttelton and as far down as Stewart Island. The engineering staff include founder Robert Neal and his sons Sam and Hamish. Typical of the commercial vessels Seafarer Marine services are seafood company Sanfords’ mussel barging fleet at Havelock, the three barges owned by O’Donnell Park Barging which also includes Kenny Barging in Picton and Johnsons Barging in Havelock. Another of the commercial clientele is Outward Bound New Zealand at Anakiwa which has had two recently fitted new John Deere engines in their launches, and the repowering of the third is currently underway at the Waikawa Hardstand. The students however do still get their sea experience in cutters powered by oars. A multiplicity of recreational pleasure boat owners are either serviced or have work done at the owners’ berths, or may be towed in by their owners or hauled in by big trucking companies to either the Seafarer Marine Engineering yard or the Waikawa Hardstand. Seafarer Marine Engineering founder Robert Neal started out as a plumber following in the footsteps of his father Graeme Neal. He worked in that trade for a few years until he decided a change was necessary. For no better reason than looking for a cleaner occupation, he went to work for local business Seatech, and found that his plumbing skills were highly relevant to marine engineering. When Seatech was sold out, Robert teamed up for a while with another former plumber, John Schloot, under the Seafarer Marine Engineering label, with Robert mostly working out of the back of a Landrover but otherwise from a property owned by his parents. Robert achieved his Level Four qualifications by correspondence over this time Robert bought John out in 2000, and soon after, with wife Michelle, established the company on the section they owned in Market Street. In 2012 their elder son Sam joined the company and worked the equivalent of a four to five-year apprenticeship to gain his marine qualifications, a process followed a couple of years later by his brother Hamish. Hamish had been intending to join the Navy, but got lured into the Seafarer workshop before he could do so, and has never left. About the time Sam joined his father in the business, Karen took over as office manProudly supporting Seafarer Marine Engineering
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